Meduzz a dit:
A little correction adrianhaffner, they never found any fossils of bacteria or DNA in meteorites. They did however find organic molecules (amino acids and nucleotide bases, which are the building blocks of resp. proteins and DNA). Its very probable that these molecules - next to the organic molecules that could be spontaneously generated in the earths atmosphere or by vulcanic activity - played a role in abiogenesis (formation of life from "dead" molecules). Panspermia is the theory that these "seeds" have been delivered to earth or randomly shot into the galaxy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
well thank you for the info, the article i read was a little while ago, and very vague. idk if i would simply label panspermia as just organic molecules though.. i've done a little more research into it, and im finding that the truth lies somewhere in the middle of what you and i say...
from that wiki article:
"...lithopanspermia (microorganisms in rocks)..." (<that's a term used in a hypothesis mind you, but the term still applies imo)
http://www.panspermia.com/whatsne34.htm#040802
"...meteorite microfossils that resemble microorganisms..."
have a look at these pictures
http://www.panspermia.com/zhmur1.htm
i know those are all the same website, so heres one from the other point of view, or at least a bit more neutral. fact is though, that these pictures still look shockingly close to lifeforms that we've all seen before(under a microscope anyways)...
http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Dec97/LifeonMarsUpdate2.html
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lpi/meteorites/life.html
follow my thought process for a second after the first bit of the latter article.
space is huge, we can't imagine... little present from one planet exploding travels for a while with life inside it. distance is too far for "them" to get out and live on the other side, and the life runs out. a pureed mess of dead organisms and bacteria (from colliding with many other things in space) arrives at it's destination, but only in slop form due to other shit hitting it along the way. i am a firm believer in (edit) *the possibility of* abiogenesis, not EXCLUSIVELY though, dont get me wrong...
to me it makes little difference whether or not the stuff they found was living. if you can try to imagine with me, with the scale of our planet, to the scale of the closest star, to the scale, simply of the galaxy, ONE galaxy, nevermind the fucking UNIVERSE, i am more than positive that there is an unfathomable SHITLOAD of life out there, just bumping around, waiting for a nice "oasis" in the "desert"... i dont think that people should need convincing on that :|
i hope i dont sound harsh to you, it's just very hard if not impossible to express the scale of the objects and places involved here
to conclude, the universe's size lends an advantageous hand to the probability of there being many other suitable climates out there, if i were to think otherwise, i would be thinking of a *much smaller universe than the one we are living in